Semaphore jetty is one of Adelaide’s more popular fishing jetties.
It is over half a kilometre in length, set over shallow sandy bottom, with some broken ground at the end.
The jetty is famous for its big yellowfin whiting.
Fish a rising tide for these whiting when there are no swimmers nearby, and use very light tackle and fresh or live worms, including tubeworms, bloodworms or weedworms.
Weedworms are usually easy to find if there are rotting rafts of weed on the local beaches. Just dig into the weed, weedworms look like earthworms.
Bream are found around the jetty pylons, but they see a lot of baits and can be hard to catch.
Most Semaphore fishos target squid, blue swimmer crabs, garfish, tommy ruffs, salmon trout, yellowfin whiting and yelloweye mullet.
Mullet and salmon trout (juvenile salmon) are caught all year.
Blue crabs are best in summer, with two-spot sand crabs in April/May.
Fish for tommy ruff and gar after dark.
North of Semaphore jetty is the shorter and shallow Largs Bay jetty, which produces mostly blue swimmer crabs and yellowfin whiting around high tide.
Occasional school mulloway are caught from Semaphore jetty.
Big snapper can’t be caught now, but have been caught off Semaphore jetty in years past.
Gummy sharks, eagle and smooth rays are found around all of Adelaide’s jetties, as are Port Jackson sharks and fiddler rays.
The author was fishing Semaphore jetty at night when a school of small hammerhead sharks raced in and smashed the tommy ruffs under lights.
Note that there are special rules for fishing for sharks and rays in South Australia.
Adelaide’s other metro jetties are Brighton, Glenelg, Henley, and Grange.
Other landbased spots to try near Adelaide include North Haven, the productive Port River estuary, and West Lakes, a reclaimed marsh that is now a saltwater canal estate and a great spot to target large black bream.
Register and leave a comment and/or photo about your Semaphore jetty fishing experience.
Here is a list of recommended tackle for SA waters.
Here is the SA seasonal fishing calendar for various fish species.
Semaphore tides
West Beach webcam
SA fishing regulations
SA marine parks
SA stocked dams
SA dam water levels
Murray River fishing spots
NOTE: Special snapper rules apply in South Australia – more info here.
Email corrections, additions, pictures or video here.
